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The Rise and Rise of Piracy

After much delay, the comedy titled The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin has been released. Available for purchase via Vimeo for $4.951, the movie provides the viewer with a glimpse into the past of bitcoiners who lost it all. While the film makers set out to create a serious documentary about Bitcoin, the end result is that TRAROB lost all of its appeal as a documentary but in turn, became a classic Bitcoin comedy.

Produced by 44th Floor Productions, DARONIMAX Media, Fair Acres Media and directed by Nicholas Mross2, The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin tells the hilarious story of a computer programmer3 who becomes obsessed with Bitcoin, begins GPU mining and proceeds to lose 2700 bitcoins to Butterfly Labs and an unknown amount to Avalon4.

At the beginning of the film, Dan Mross is an excitable man with an enthusiasm for Bitcoin akin to a childs zest for life but by the end of it, he is gaunt, visibly depressed and looks the same as a sickly Steve Jobs did. This is a man full of regret.

As he packs up his BFL units to sell, he explains to his son that he threw away his bitcoins and their future because he is stupid and ignored MPOE-PR's posts on Bitcoin Talk. Despite all of this, Dan continues to wear his Butterfly Labs t-shirt till the end of the film, as if it is a remnant, a small piece of a future he will not enjoy.

One might assume that TRAROB was delayed for so long simply because Nicholas Mross knows that his film makes his brother look beyond stupid but you would be wrong! Stupidity clearly runs in the family because instead of releasing the film online once it was complete, the producers shopped the film around for years on end until no-one cared to see it5.

Desperate to have it released to outlets around the world, the producers signed on to film sales representatives in order to sell the comedy to major television networks or possibly get it on the big screen in movie theatres. With a belief that a traditional release would assist in reaching a wider audience, time dragged on and on until they accepted that no-one in the old world was interested in promoting their own destruction.

Finally, the producers capitulated and uploaded the film to Vimeo. Almost immediately, the film was uploaded to the Pirate Bay where the producers can be found in the comments begging for bitcoin donations. They have also taken to /r/bitcoin asking that if you downloaded the film via a torrent, please consider making a donation because we fucked it all up.

Now, if only someone would make a film about this cluster fuck of a documentary.